The Chrestomanci Series: Entire Collection Books 1-7. Diana Wynne Jones

      They were ushered into a private parlour in the White Hart. Mr Henry Nostrum rolled pompously to meet them.

      “My dear young friends!” He put his hands on Janet’s shoulders and kissed her. Janet started backwards, knocking her hat over one ear. Cat was a little shaken. He had forgotten Mr Nostrum’s seedy, shabby look, and the weird effect of his wandering left eye.

      “Sit down, sit down!” said Mr Nostrum heartily. “Have some ginger beer.”

      They sat down. They sipped ginger beer, which neither of them liked. “What did you want me for, as well as Gwendolen?” Cat asked.

      “Because,” said Mr Nostrum, “to come straight to the point and not to beat about the bush, we find, as we rather feared we would, that we are quite unable to make use of those three signatures which you were kind enough to donate to me for services rendered in the tuition line. The Person Who Inhabits That Castle Yonder, whose name I disdain to say, signs his name under unbreakable protections. You may call it prudent of him. But I fear it necessitates our using Plan Two. Which was why, my dear Cat, we were so glad to arrange for you to live at the Castle.”

      “What is Plan Two?” said Janet.

      Mr Nostrum’s odd eye slipped sideways across Janet’s face. He did not seem to realise she was not Gwendolen. Perhaps his wandering eye did not see very well. “Plan Two is just as I described it to you, my dear Gwendolen,” he said. “We have not changed it one whit.”

      Janet had to try another way to find out what he was talking about. She was getting quite good at it. “I want you to describe it to Cat, though,” she said. “He doesn’t know about it, and he may need to because – because most unfortunately they’ve taken my witchcraft away.”

      Mr Nostrum wagged a playful finger at her. “Yes, naughty girl. I’ve been hearing things about you in the village. A sad thing to lose, but let us hope it will only be temporary. Now – as to explaining to young Cat – how shall I best go about it?” He thought, smoothing his frizzy wings of hair, as his habit was. Somehow, the way he did it showed Cat that whatever Mr Nostrum was going to tell him, it would not be quite the truth. It was in the movement of Mr Nostrum’s hands, and in the very sit of his silver watch-chain across his shabby, rounded waistcoat.

      “Well, young Chant,” said Mr Nostrum, “this is the matter in a nutshell. There is a group, a clique, a collection of people, headed by the Master of the Castle, who are behaving very selfishly in connection with witchcraft. They are keeping all the best things to themselves, which of course makes them very dangerous – a threat to all witches, and a looming disaster to ordinary people. For instance, take dragon’s blood. You know that it is banned. These people, with That Person at their head, had it banned, and yet – mark this well, young Cat – they use it daily themselves. And – here is my point – they keep tight control of the ways to get to the worlds where dragon’s blood comes from. An ordinary necromancer like myself can only get it at great risk and expense, and our exotic suppliers have to endanger themselves to get it for us. And the same goes for almost any product from another world.

      “Now, I ask you, young Cat, is this fair? No. And I’ll tell you why not, young Eric. It is not fair that the ways to other worlds should be in the hands of a few. That is the crux of the matter: the ways to other worlds. We want them opened up, made free to everyone. And that is where you come in, young Chant. The best and easiest way, the broadest Gateway to Elsewhere, if I may put it like that, is a certain enclosed garden in the grounds of this said Castle. I expect you have been forbidden to enter it—”

      “Yes,” said Cat. “We have been.”

      “And consider how unfair!” said Mr Nostrum. “The Master of That Place uses it every day and travels where he pleases. So what I want you to do, young Cat, and this is all Plan Two amounts to, is to go into the garden at two-thirty precisely on Sunday afternoon. Can you promise me to do that?”

      “What good would that do?” asked Cat.

      “It would break the seal of enchantment these dastardly persons have set on the Gateways to Elsewhere,” Mr Nostrum said.

      “I’ve never quite understood,” Janet said, with a very convincing wrinkle in her forehead, “how Cat could break the seals just by going into the garden.”

      Mr Nostrum looked a little irritated. “By being an ordinary innocent lad, of course. My dear Gwendolen, I have stressed to you over and over again the importance of having an innocent lad at the centre of Plan Two. You must understand.”

      “Oh, I do, I do,” Janet said hastily. “And has it to be this Sunday at two-thirty?”

      “As ever is,” said Mr Nostrum, smiling again. “It’s a good strong time. Will you do that for us, young Cat? Will you, by this simple act, set your sister and people like her free – free to do as they need in the practice of magic?”

      “I’ll get into trouble if I’m caught,” said Cat.

      “A bit of boyish cunning will see you through. Then, never fear, we’ll take care of you afterwards,” Mr Nostrum persuaded.

      “I suppose I can try,” said Cat. “But do you think you can help me a bit in return? Do you think your brother could very kindly lend us twenty pounds by next Wednesday?”

      A vague, though affable, look affected Mr Nostrum’s left eye. It pointed benevolently to the furthest corner of the parlour. “Anything you please, dear boy. Just get into that garden, and the fruits of all the worlds will be yours for the picking.”

      “I need to be a flea half an hour later, and I want to look as if I can do magic on Monday,” said Cat. “That’s all I need, apart from the twenty pounds.”

      “Anything, anything! Just get into that garden for us,” said Mr Nostrum expansively.

      With that, it seemed Cat and Janet had to be content. Cat made several efforts to fix Mr Nostrum in a definite promise, but all he would say was “Just get into that garden”. Janet looked at Cat and they got up to go.

      “Let us gossip,” suggested Mr Nostrum. “I have at least two items of interest to you.”

      “We haven’t time,” Janet lied firmly. “Come on Cat.”

      Mr Nostrum was used to Gwendolen being equally firm. He got up and led them to the Inn door like royalty and waved to them as they went out on to the green. “I’ll see you on Sunday,” he called after them.

      “No you won’t!” Janet whispered. Keeping her head down, so that Gwendolen’s broad hat hid her from Mr Nostrum, she whispered to Cat, “Cat, if you do one thing that unbelievably dishonest man wants, you’ll be a fool! I know he told you a pack of lies. I don’t know what he’s really after, but please don’t do it.”

      “I know—” Cat was beginning, when Mr Baslam got up from the bench outside the White Hart and shambled after them.

      “Wait!” he puffed, rolling beer